


Over Lunch

by Hospitaliers



Category: Gaia Online
Genre: Cooking, Food, M/M, Making lunch for your elven bae, The shipping is there only if you squint there's no lovey-dovey shit, This is so bad hot damn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 03:43:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4506435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hospitaliers/pseuds/Hospitaliers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicolae tasks himself with making lunch for both himself and Cresento. The results are far from what the captain was expecting, but he enjoys them all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over Lunch

**Author's Note:**

> This was [originally written](http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.97483663_44/#44) for NPCon 2015's Cresolae Panel, based on a [headcanon](http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/t.97483663_25/#25) I shared there.

He's starting to regret having agreed. His patience wears thin.  
  
It's two in the evening and Nicolae has been cloistered inside the kitchen for about four hours. The entire ship smells strong. The aroma that wafts from the kitchen is overpowering, invasive. It even covers up the strong fragance of all the Spring Breeze and Rosewater he's been experimenting with, and their subsequent gunpowder stench. It smells like spice, and tomato, and beef, and--  
  
His stomach rumbles.  
  
He's starting to regret having ever agreed and his patience wears thinner and thinner by the second. But he's  _hungry_.  
  
He's thinking about simply barging into the wretched room to take matters into his own hands, when Nicolae enters his office wearing a worn apron that might as well have been rolled on by a muddy dog.  
  
And with him, that scent, multiplied twofold.  
  
"Lunch's served,  _captain_."  
  
"About time. This better be worth all the time you spent in there." Cresento huffs in exhasperation, getting up from his seat and walking past Nicolae towards the dining room, closer and closer to the source of the scent he's come to seek after.  
  
"It does. Promise." Nicolae assures him with pride, and sits down first on his end of the rectangular table, not wasting a moment to start chowing down on his creation. Cresento follows not long afterwards, and as soon as he's in front of his meal, his expression of anger turns to one of disgust.  
  
"What is this?" He asks, sneering at the plate in front of him.  
  
"Stew." Nicolae answers through a mouth full of beef and beans, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world and his captain isn't using rethoric.  
  
In turn, Cresento glares daggers at the dish in front of him. He even had the audacity to use the clay dishes he has explicitly  _forbidden_  every chef he has hired from using because they're so  _mundane_.  
  
He inhales sharply through his nose, the only thing stopping him from upturning his plate being the expensive tablecloth Nicolae has set the plates on, fearful to even let one careless movement from staining it. He probably did it on purpose.  
  
"Are you trying to tell me that you spent nearly four hours of your day... wasted four hours of my precious time, had me waiting four hours for what you told me would be a worthwhile lunch... and all you made is this... this plate full of a  _poor attempt at beggar human gruel!?_ " He hisses, his hands clutching at the tablecloth at both sides of his dish and looking like a panther ready to pounce at Nicolae from right across the table.  
  
The urchin takes his time before answering. He finishes chewing through his current mouthful, and even goes for a new one, taking his sweet time tasting his creation, much to his captain's dismay. Finally, he answers. "Yep." And flashes him a foxy grin.  
  
He looks so pleased with himself. How  _dare_  he.  
  
He's about to unload his full arsenal of human curses and a fair deal of elvish ones, when Nicolae sets his spoon down and raises his hand, stopping him before he has the opportunity to start yelling. "Look, don't ditch it before you try it, yeah? I spent a lot of time in that kitchen making this. I even had to learn how to use a lot of the fancy utensils in there! You don't want my hard work to go to waste, do you?"  
  
An image of his wrecked kitchen flashes in Cresento's mind, and he goes for an even louder yell, but once again, Nicolae is faster, and his voice raises over his own. "You're hungry and that gets you in a bad mood. Why don't you grab that spoon and try some? I promise you you'll like it."  
  
He can't argue against that. He's hungrier than he remembers having ever been, and he definitely doesn't trust Rina to cook a proper meal.  
  
Sighing defeatedly, he sits down, sneering weakly once again at the stew sitting in front of him. With some luck, it might still be hot and sear his tongue, so that he doesn't have to taste whatever it is Nicolae put in his simpleton's concotion. At this, Nicolae relaxes, allowing himself to smile discreetly when he's certain Cresento isn't watching.  
  
The elf grabs his spoon and picks up a spoonful of something from his serving, sparing it an uneasy glance before taking it in his mouth.  
  
A scrunch of the face. A tentative chew... and a surprised expression pointed at the plate.  
  
"What is this?" Cresento asks curiously, having already swallowed his mouthful.  
  
"Either potato or cardoon. I wasn't paying attention but it looked white from here so it must've been either cardy or taters." Nicolae answers, minding his own, already half-gone meal more than his boss' question.  
  
Cresento frowns at the answer, clearly not the one he was expecting. "Not the bite, you idiot. The dish. What is it called? What does it have?"  
  
"Oh." This time more politely, the human quickly swallows his mouthful and wipes his mouth. With the back of his hand. Still better than nothing. Afterwards, he answers. "It doesn't have a name, it's just... stew. It has plenty of beef, carrots, potatoes, cardoon and tomato sauce. And beans. Lots of beans." He grabs his glass of wine and takes it to his mouth. "Do you like it?" He asks, and takes a drink. He never gets an answer.  
  
Cresento is still surprised at himself for not having spat already. He tries each ingredient individually, and then tries out combinations of them, taking small, inquisitive bites. He can count more kinds of legumes than what Nicolae can probably name.  
  
After one particular bite, the captain feels something in his mouth. Something strange. Putting on an expression of disgust, he pulls a fibrous, fuse-shaped leaf out of his mouth, and eyes it warily. From the other side of the table, Nicolae guffaws. "Oh man, you got the laurel leaf! That means you have to wash the dishes! Ahahahahah... hahah... ahh..." He begins laughing, but his fit soon dies down, as per the silent request of his boss' icy glare. "It's... it's custom, you know? If the dish has laurel, whoever gets the leaf does the dishes..."  
  
There's a prolonged silence that aims to intimidate from the elf's side, and Nicolae retreats his interest towards his own plate, looking absolutely disheartened. "I'll do it myself, don't worry."  
  
After Nicolae's outburst, silence falls between the two for a moment. The captain absorbed in his meal, and his quartermaster taking his to a slow, deliberate end, looking up at the elf every now and then to watch him enjoy the fruits of his culinary skills, careful not to be noticed by the short-tempered man.  
  
Eventually, Cresento starts seeing the bottom of his plate, and realizes the kind of silence he has allowed the room to settle into. He breaks it with another question, trying to make it sound like the smalltalk of a disinterested man.  
  
"When did you learn how to cook this?"  
  
Having finished his serving, Nicolae sits back and relaxes, taking his half-empty glass of wine with him and patting his gut in a most ordinary manner, to the captain's eyes. "Long time ago. Remember I told you my aunt and uncle raised me? Well, they also worked a lot and sometimes weren't around to feed us. And since I was the runt of the litter, I had to make sure everyone else was fed before bedtime." He takes a few small sips of wine in-between phrases, letting the sweetness of it settle on his tongue and the burn linger on his throat. "We were dirt-poor so we couldn't afford to buy a lot of food, and even less fancy food. But a few pieces of gold bought you a lot of beans back in the day and that was as close as we could get to a feast back then. We also had a neighbor who had pigs, so whenever they slaughtered one, he would give us some pork. Most of the time they were the fatty bits but hey, food is food, right?"  
  
He sighs, and grows silent, staring whimsically at the bottom of his glass, where the last drops of wine sit. "Sometimes it wasn't enough, and one or two of us had to go to bed without dinner. Most of the time, it was my aunt and uncle." He sighs again, rests his forearms against the table, and sets his glass down, making a face that aims to be comical and carefree, but that Cresento registers as nostalgic. Heartbroken, even.  
  
Before he can comment on this, Nicolae is smiling widely at him again, nodding his head once towards his now-empty platter. "I take it as you liked it?"  
  
The elf looks down, at his empty plate and spoon. He was so absorbed in the human's narrative, he made quick work of his serving without realizing so.  
  
Cresento clears his throat. Wiping his mouth with his napkin and taking a drink from his own, mostly-untouched glass of wine, trying to compose himself back into his usual impassible, haughty self.  
  
"It was... acceptable. I managed to keep it in my stomach, at the very least." He gets up from his seat, and strides towards his office once again to resume his work. "However, I expect you to be swifter next time. It's unbecoming of anyone working under my strict supervision to act with such tardiness."  
  
Through what any other person would consider to be nothing but fancy-worded jabs, he sees a ray of hope.  
  
_'Next time.'_  
  
"Sure thing, boss." He replies with a smirk as he watches Cresento disappear into his office.  
  
Of course there will be a next time.

**Author's Note:**

> This work has been cross-posted from [my journal](http://www.gaiaonline.com/journal/?mode=view&post_id=37287509&u=37982875).
> 
> This is my first work for the Gaia Online fanbase, and english isn't my native language. Any criticism, corrections or suggestions are encouraged.
> 
> Or you could also send me a PM on Gaia and we can talk. That'd be cool.


End file.
